Chronicles of the Monapon
by The Exile
Summary: Riki's 'Monapon' turns out to be a real legendary weapon like the Monado, and the 'Noponis', Riki's imaginary Bionis-like world-titan shaped like a Nopon, also turns out to be real. Riki goes on a quest to stop it from eating the entire world. Written for journey story 2013. Postgame AU, contains major spoilers and mild language.
1. Chapter 1

Oleksiy had never seen the star before tonight.

The vigilant watchman noticed the change in the stars immediately. He knew the place of each and every one of them. It wasn't because he was neglecting his duty to guard the town. There was hardly ever any trouble these days. Colony Six had grown even larger in the days of peace following Shulk's victory over the Bionis. All they had to deal with was the occasional Armu rustler or particularly organised pack of Bunnits. He could keep one eye out for them and still relax occasionally. Most nights, he had nothing to do but gaze up at the new, strange sky, one with stars, suns, planets, all sorts of strange twinkling lights that weren't rising ether pockets, or the menacing twin red lights of gigantic mechanical eyes. As with anyone learning about something completely new for the first time, he devoured any and all information about them with a ravenous hunger like a Nopon child in an unattended larder. The stars were something profoundly new, a symbol of their victory, but he was one of the very few in the Colony who thought to gaze up at them with awe and wonder, and he was the only one who had spotted that there was something wrong with them.

The new star was larger and brighter than a star should be, a giant, luminous blue orb, and it wasn't rotating slowly across the skyscape, it was moving closer to the planet for a while, too fast to be the orbit of a celestial body, then suddenly stopping dead, hanging there in the sky. Nothing natural did that.

"Maybe it's a missile," he said to Sharla.

"From who? We aren't at war with anyone any more, Oleksiy," she shook her head, the exasperation in her dark eyes apparent as her black hair fell over her face. She thought he was sleep deprived, or an idiot who believed conspiracy theories, or maybe that he was suffering from post-combat trauma. He was worried that he had overstepped his boundaries, and that she would decide he was unfit for his post, but this was too important to the survival of the Colony for him to put his own needs first.

"It might be a Mechon," he said, "There are still Mechon, I've heard, wandering out where the Fallen Arm used to be. They get rusty and their programming gets damaged. They can still fly and they've still got missiles."

"Nobody's ever proven that theory," she said, "Reyn went to have a look, idiot that he is, and he didn't see any Mechon."

"Werner went on his own last week, to see if there was anything to buy or sell. He saw Ancient Daedala. Almost frightened the life out of him."

"If he got close enough to Daedala to see her and he's still alive to report it... he didn't see Daedala," Sharla sighed, "If it's an invader or a weapon, why is it just hanging there?"

"Whatever it is, it's not a star, and we need to know what it is before it's too late," said the watchman, "The stars aren't working, Sharla. I know we haven't been a normal planet for all that long, but I assure you this doesn't happen to normal planets. If you think you can be complacent just because we saved our world once, that we can't imagine the possibility that something big will ever go wrong again..."

"I'm not being complacent, Oleksiy, I'm just too busy managing the defences of an entire Colony to investigate everything personally. I promise you I'll keep my eye out for any danger, strange light in the sky or no, just like I always do," she told him. Sharla's tired, too, he realised, and very overworked. Even with Reyn constantly by her side, with Otharon still as good as new, unlike Oleksiy, and Juju a fully grown soldier, and the whole Colony pitching in, sometimes it felt like it wasn't enough. They had a whole world to rebuild from scratch, not just a Colony, and at least they could just make the Colony look like it did before. Sharla took too much of the burden onto her own shoulders that was meant for the Bionis.

"I think Alcamoth has an observatory, by the way. The restoration work there is coming along nicely. If you think it needs scientific observation, you could see if they have their telescope back up and working."

"I will do. I just want you to keep it in mind..."

"Reyn, the door's not locked, don't break it down!" Sharla snapped as the door to Sharla's office in the Central Command Headquarters of Colony Six Defence Force was almost ripped off its hinges by the thunderous pounding. She walked up, turned the handle and pulled, at which point, a fully armoured Reyn lunged forward and fell flat on his face.

"What is it? You look like you've seen a Mechon," she said, looking pointedly over at Oleksiy, then she turned back to Reyn as he was picking himself up off the floor and frowned, "Why are you covered in pollen? Are the Nopons causing trouble again?"

"It's Riki! He told me to come to Frontier Village as quickly as possible, and..." he gasped for breath, "It's chaos there! Even more than usual, I mean! They wouldn't let me go until I promised I'd fetch everyone! They're saying the world is about to come to an end..."

"Oh, what is it this time? They're going to pester Shulk and Fiora next if I don't go and deal with it, aren't they?"

"I think so, they told me to go and fetch them as well," said Reyn, "It's that mission we did a couple of months back. The one with the Highmore Caviar. It's come back to bite us in the arse again."

"Please tell me they're not manufacturing the stuff again."

"Not exactly," said Reyn, "Although they're acting a lot more like they're on drugs than usual."

"I'll take a look," she sighed, grabbing her gun from the rack by the side of her desk. Her squad could handle most dangers that could befall the new world, but rowdy Nopon was a threat that only an elite few should ever be exposed to.


	2. Chapter 2

"End of world upon us," one of the guards whispered conspiratorially at Sharla as they lowered the drawbridge for the two travellers to enter, as if they couldn't hear for themselves all the shrill screaming, weird chanting, the clatter of busy Nopon feet as, in an odd surge of focus and work enthusiasm, they ran with tools and weapons to reinforce the defences and ran with stockpiles of food to the kitchen in the basement, or lined the corridors in synchronised prayer. Some of them were heavily intoxicated, to the point of falling off the balconies, having decided to bolster morale by throwing a party. Pterixes flocked in the sky, the guards lifting Littlepons and older Nopons into baskets in some sort of attempt at an evacuation. They were taking this very seriously. It wasn't just an insurance scam or a way to encourage their latest 'heropon' to pay off his debts, this was a Nopon reaction to a genuinely perceived threat. Sharla wondered what had disrupted their world to such an extent that they believed Armageddon was coming. It took a lot to faze a Nopon, to the extent that they didn't just try and eat it or swindle it or both.

An armoured head-wing made the shape of a cupped palm in front of her face, "Donate to end of world preparation fund? Got a wifeypon and littlepons to feed."

Sharla picked up her pace and ignored the frantically bouncing Nopon guard. He tried to keep up but ran back when he remembered that he was supposed to be guarding the door.

As she walked through the gates into the central Plaza, Sharla saw Riki standing alongside Chief Dunga and High Priestess Miko on the Sacred Altar in the middle of the pool of Jollyade, which had a kitchen set up beside it to distribute the alcoholic liquid to the large queue of waiting Nopon. Miko hovered with her eyes closed and her arms and legs folded as far as a Nopon could get into a meditative position. Dunga was screaming at the top of his voice at an assembled crowd that spanned the entire two floors above them as well as the crowded Plaza. Even the owners of the various shops on the ground floor looked more interested in what the Chief had to say than trying to heckle people closer to the back of the crowd.

"People no panic!" yelled Dunga, "We fight this before and win, we beat it again! Heropon with us, Herohom friends come soon, heroes beat Noponis and save day!"

"Did he just say..." whispered Sharla. Reyn nodded, a look of distress on his face as, with a loud splash, another Nopon fell from the fifth floor into the pool of Jollyade. An exasperated kitchen maid pulled him out by his ears.

"Miko have vision," announced the High Priestess suddenly, in the best approximation of an ethereal, otherworldly voice that a shrill Nopon voice could manage, "Blue star fall. Blue star want to eat world like tasty snack. Heropon take up Monapon and bash blue star with it!"

"Reyn here now! Reyn and Sharla!" announced Riki, dancing from side to side with unrestrained glee before darting towards Reyn, head-wings extended for a flying tackle-hug. Reyn grabbed him and held him at arm's length, his little legs kicking in mid-air. It took him a few seconds to realise what a bad idea this was. Most of the crowd had followed Riki to see what all the excitement was about, and Reyn was now surrounded by cheering, bouncing Nopon, some of whom were trying to untie his backpack and had already stolen and eaten various items out of it, others who wanted to play whatever game Riki was playing and were clambering onto Reyn's back, all of whom where chattering to him at the tops of their high-pitched voices, all at the same time, none of them about the same thing. Thanking whatever it is you were supposed to thank now that the Bionis was gone that he was wearing his anti-topple armour, he waded through the ankle-length mire of Nopon and placed Riki back down on the Altar.

"Vision coming true!" said Miko, seeming inordinately happy that her doomsday prophecies were being fulfilled.

"Riki, I know a lot of people are worried about the new star in the sky, but I'm sure the world won't come to an end!" said Sharla.

"Not star! Big giant Nopon in sky!" corrected Riki.

"Yes, that is a terrifying thought. But there isn't a Bionis or a Mechonis, is there? So how can there still be a Noponis?"

"Monado beat Bionis and Mechonis. Not work on Noponis. Monapon still there. Riki not use Monapon on Noponis."

"But the Monapon was just an old stick, remember? You hit Magnificent Digalus with it and it broke!"

"Riki not wield weapon from heart," he explained, "Use it for silly dinosaur fight. Not use it for real purpose. Riki find Monapon, get Nopon Sage to reforge."

"How are you going to find the weapon? You threw it down into the jungle! It'll have decomposed or been eaten years ago!"

"Can no eat Monado. Riki try," he reassured them, "Riki know he can find Monapon. Hero's weapon sing to his soul. Riki dream about Monapon every night."

"There's no harm in looking, I suppose," said Sharla, "It's not going to be that far away from the balcony you threw it off."

"Heroes volunteer to find legendary Monapon!" screamed Dunga. Every Nopon in the Plaza cheered and ran onto the stage to try and grab Riki. Reyn helped Sharla escape from the shrine and run into a side alley, away from the surge of the crowd.

"I'll distract him, I want you to go and find an old Biter and make another Monapon out of it, okay? Say you found it. Do you remember what the old one looked like? If it isn't exactly the same, say that it evolved, like the Monado did."

"I don't think that's going to stop them," said Reyn, "It'll just prove them right. They'll just want us to go and find a Noponis to fight."

"Then we'll find something in the jungle big enough to eat Nopons, and hunt it down. They'll be happy with us, there'll be one less threat to Frontier Village, and at least it's nice to see Nopons being so organised!"

"Sharla... what if they're right? Not about the giant Nopon, but what if this new thing in the sky is something we need to worry about?"

"What exactly are we supposed to do about something that's all the way up in the sky?"

"I don't know," said Reyn, "But I'm worried about what might happen if we wait for it to get nearer!"

"Where you go?" shrieked a voice from on top of Reyn's head, where Riki suddenly appeared, "Balcony not that way! This why I asked Reyn to get Shulk and Dunban. Now I have to make do with you two!"

"Sorry, Riki," Sharla smiled at him. It was always fun to have Riki around, even if it meant you didn't get any peace and quiet, "Lead the way, Heropon!"

"Yes, we are well aware of the Blue Star, and we are observing it closely," Melia reassured Oleksiy. "It is indeed anomalous but we have no evidence yet that it is hostile. Its flight path is heading towards the planet but at that speed, its weight and momentum are not enough for it to break through the atmosphere, so rest assured that it will not crash-land on the planet."

"What do you think it is?" asked the watchman, trying his best not to gawk at the magnificence of the Imperial Palace. He had never been inside Alcamoth before, much less the Palace, and it filled him with awe even when it was still mostly a building site. He was surprised when Empress Melia gave him an audience straight away, as soon as she was told that he was a friend of Sharla's, without even a glance at her busy schedule. He was even more surprised when she came straight out of her formal persona and began to talk business. Being the friend of heroes made the world a very weird place at times.

"We are not sure what exactly, but we know it to be artificial."

"A Mechon weapon?" he asked.

She shook her head, "It is no Mechon. We would recognise an old enemy. You would be well speaking to our scientists. I am no expert on technical matters. You will be allowed access to the observatory during your stay."

"Thank you, your Imperial... er... Highness?"

"There is no need for formality. I am glad to hear that my friend is safe and well," she said. Suddenly, she turned her head to regard a man who appeared through a side door and silently walked up to the Empress. He bent gracefully and whispered something in her ear.

"A matter requires my urgent attention. I apologise for the abrupt end to the audience. You will be escorted to the observatory now," she told him, and a servant hurried over to carry out the order. Without really checking that they were going the right way, she disappeared through the side room after the other man.

Alvis' study was protected by the strongest wards known to High Entia mages from both technological and magical eavesdropping as well as casual overhearing. He sat back down in his comfortable leather swivel chair and began typing into his hand terminal, which displayed a live feed of the laboratory results and the images from the telescopes as well as a virtual pin-board of holograms clustered around the desk in a cloud emanating from the live feed, with saved archives of the images at different points in the sky at different times. Alvis couldn't look tired but Melia worked with him closely enough to recognise the slight delay when he spoke and moved, almost like lag from a virtual image, and the strained quality of his voice, that told her how much he had been pushing himself lately. He took his continued existence, when his function was over, to be a sign that something was amiss. At the very least, he told Melia, he should have dramatically changed appearance or even personality when he changed from a security program to a less urgent system maintenance role. Melia didn't understand how such technology worked, that could create and shape entire worlds, but she understood how difficult it was for a leader to switch roles from peacetime to wartime and back.

"The readings came back from the probes we sent up," said Alvis, "The ether concentration around the unidentified object is off the scale. Furthermore, its trajectory shows that it is not only being moved artificially, it is being deliberately piloted. I analysed the readings from some of the software I installed on the probes myself, using some of the systems I am connected to. I'm afraid the object registered as a Monado-compatible device."

"Like a what... a Mechon? The people at Junks confirmed it definitely isn't a Mechon!"

"No, not like a Mechon. Like the Mechonis, or the Bionis, or maybe even another Monado. It could even be a system process such as I. But given its scale and the number of much smaller nodes it is networked to... I suspect it is closer to a Titan such as the Bionis or Mechonis."

"But you told us the Bionis wouldn't come back! The Monado is gone! How can we fight something like that when we don't have our weapons any more?"

"Melia... I did not bring up the possibility because it is so remote as to be statistically insignificant, and because even if such a thing exists, it would be several magnitudes less likely to visit another world-system, never mind one already inhabited by such a device" he said, then stopped when he saw her clueless expression, "In simpler terms, this is a device other than the Bionis or the Mechonis, nothing to do with either, that works in the same way as them. It was manufactured by the same device but when the instruction was given to deactivate the Bionis and the Mechonis, it was not picked up by devices that were out of range at the time. This device has been travelling a great distance. The most likely thing is, the massive fluctuations in ether energy caused by our battle with the Bionis acted as a beacon to attract its attention."

"Others like the Bionis and the Mechonis? How many of them are there?"

"I have no idea," he admitted, "I only have control over those influenced by the Monado. This entity is not keyed to the Monado. It most likely has its own similar device. I did not even believe other such devices existed. Ours was the final decision about how the world would appear, and I was told that the other prototype devices were deleted. It could be that other worlds were colonised and shaped later, or that a backup device was installed just outside the range of the Monado."

"So, what, then? Are we about to be invaded? Devoured?"

"We must act as though this object's intentions are hostile, if it does decide to approach our world further. Even if it only wishes to observe us, its programming may attempt to latch onto us as a world without a device installed, and it will begin shaping us. Shulk wished for a world free of the influence of the Monado, so I must carry out his wishes and protect the world against anything that would change this world."

"But the very act of wishing away the Monado has left us with no defences!"

"As I said, this device most likely has its own Monado. Besides," said Alvis, "You have seen Shulk fight with a Monado that is not physically present. If I were to fight this device, I would attempt to hack into it by force. A Monado is close enough to its control key that it would still be useful as a hacking tool. If Shulk's will is powerful enough, he can use the Monado even though it is not the intended use for the Monado. After all, it was never really intended for direct use as a weapon against the Bionis!"

"We need to tell him of the threat straight away," said Melia, "He will not be pleased. I do not think he wants to fight again. Dunban has retired from duty and Fiora is still adapting to her return to a Homs body, so it would not be fair to ask them to fight alongside us. Shulk will want to stay behind and protect the two of them."

"What of the others? I overheard the messenger from Sharla and Reyn. It sounds as though they are preparing themselves for the battle ahead as well."

Melia wasn't sure whether to let him know that the messenger had spent about half an hour complaining about Sharla and Reyn's negligence in paying no attention to their senior watchman whatsoever. "They are alive and well and ready to fight. I think I heard they were about to visit Riki. I will make sure to tell them the news as well. Only Shulk and his companions have the skills and experience to fight something like another Bionis, but we are surrounded by loyal friends in every single Colony who can protect what we hold dear while we are fighting. Maybe I should remind Shulk of this. That, and Dunban can look after himself, in retirement or no!"

"If it makes any difference," said Alvis, "The object is much smaller than the Bionis or the Mechonis. If anything, I would say it would come up to the Bionis about where Riki comes up to Reyn."

"A Nopon sized and shaped Bionis," Melia said, "This does not reassure me at all."


	3. Chapter 3

"Riki, stop making that noise, it's attracting the attention of every animal from here to Valak Mountain!"

"Big dumb Reyn noisier!" retorted Riki.

"Riki has a point," said Sharla, trying her best not to burst into laughter. It was a battle she had been fighting and losing ever since the three of them were reunited. With Reyn stomping through the undergrowth in his clankiest armour and Riki making a noise like a continuous whining drone that sounded like a Mechon with a blocked servo-jet, this was definitely not a stealth mission.

"Be quiet both of you! No ruin Riki's concentration!" snapped the Nopon, "Riki do special Monapon chant! Monapon glow when Heropon do chant! Heropon and Monapon connected at spirit level!"

"You would have better luck concentrating on actually looking around you!" said Reyn, "Oh, for crying out loud, we've been here for an hour! How are we supposed to find an old stick in a forest full of old sticks?"

Riki's voice rose several octaves, "Monapon not old stick! Riki tell you already..."

"Incoming! Get down!" yelled Sharla, crouching behind a tree and unstrapping her ether rifle from her back. She gestured upwards with the barrel of her gun and Reyn followed her gaze. The shadow that had fallen over the jungle, the one that Reyn thought was just another of the endless storm clouds, was moving towards them, and he could just see from the way the edges flickered that it was the shape of a gigantic six-winged animal, somewhere between a bearded dragon and a catfish. Reyn recognised it as a Lexos. Not just any Lexos, though. Most Lexos (Lexoses? Lexi?) weren't nearly that big, and most of them could fly in a straight line without crashing into a tree.

"Rezno!" screamed Sharla, "It's Unreliable Rezno!"

Reyn drew his driver and crouched low with the weapon's shield covering his head in preparation for an aerial attack. Riki jumped onto the armour spikes on Reyn's back and then bounced onto his driver. He waved his biter around his head and jumped up and down in excitement. Only Reyn's previous experience of fighting alongside a particularly energetic Nopon stopped him from being brained by his own driver. There was no chance of ambushing the enemy, but they had already lost any hope of this being a stealth mission.

"If you don't want me to tank, feel free to stay up there!" yelled Reyn, tilting his driver. Riki rolled onto his back and grabbed the shield with his left head wing while still gripping his biter firmly in his right, until he was now dangling from the weapon like some kind of shrieking, homicidal phone charm.

"What's it even doing here?" asked Sharla, "Rezno lives near the Falls! That's clear the other side of the jungle!"

"I don't know, maybe we should ask it when it tries to eat us!"

"It isn't actually flying towards us. Maybe it hasn't heard us... it's pretty far up... it might not be hunting, anyway, it doesn't look like it's hunting..."

"How can it not have heard us? Besides, that thing isn't moving like any Lexos I've ever seen!"

"Monster coming!" screamed Riki, darting onto Reyn's head and breathing fire at the shape that was now diving vertically straight towards them at a speed that would send it barrelling into them with a suicidal impact. They retreated to the next set of trees, Sharla picking off any shots she could while still moving, Reyn trying to interpose himself between the other two. The Lexos thudded into the ground and kept on going, felling the trees in its path and sending up a spray of earth, bracken and large glowing toadstools as it tore up the undergrowth in a huge furrow. It flipped upright, shook itself down and licked itself in a feline gesture, before training its unblinking gaze onto Riki.

"Pardon me, are you Shulk?" asked the giant Lexos.

"No eat Riki, or Riki eat you back!" screeched the Nopon.

"Riki. My mistake. Arsene's notes are so hard to read, and my eyesight isn't so good," it apologised, "I'm Rezno. Unreliable Rezno. I'm very sorry for almost flying into you!"

"You're not attacking us?" asked Reyn, his brow creasing.

"No, no, you're quite outside my patrol area, and I'm supposed to only come when summoned. I'm here to pass on a message," he said, "From the Sages. And an offer of help."

"Nopon Great Sage summon you?" asked Riki, looking even more puzzled than Reyn.

"No, no, the Five Sages! The Elder Council of Uniques!" he fluttered his wings, which were ragged from constantly crashing into things and looked a little crooked, in a gesture of exasperation, "Never mind, they did say you would have no idea what I'm talking about... but that you were looking for a legendary weapon."

"And how do you know anything about that, hm?" asked Reyn.

"Because you savagely attacked Digalus with it when he came to warn you about it! Fortunately for him, you had no idea how to use it, and even managed to break it, and when you discarded it, he warned the aerial division and Illustrious Golteus was able to grab the weapon and spirit it to safety before you decided to ritually burn it or something."

"Wait... are you telling me that the most dangerous monsters in Makna Forest worked together to steal Riki's old biter?"

"And by Arsene, you mean Despotic Arsene," said Sharla, leaning on her ether rifle, "The third most dangerous creature in the known world."

"Bad monsters!" scolded Riki, "Now Riki can no save world!"

"Um... sorry? You're the one that broke it!" protested Rezno, "Look, the long and short of it, is that the Council have it. But they want to you to come and get it off them in person."

"We have to fight all of you?"

"No, you have to persuade us that you can be responsible enough for us to let you have it back," he said, "And you have to promise to work with us to carry out the plan we're already starting to set into motion, seeing as you obviously don't have the first clue what you're doing."

"Says the Lexos who can't fly straight!"

"It's a medical condition, okay?"

"Reyn, don't upset him, he's offering to help us," said Sharla, "I haven't heard of something like this happening before, but what do we really know about Uniques other than that they're big and dangerous?"

"Well, I always thought they attacked on sight, but just shows what I know!"

"And I thought they didn't form packs," said Sharla, "Or speak Homs."

"We're solitary hunters," corrected Rezno, "And we attack trespassers on sight. Like I said, this isn't my territory. And the senior Uniques speak most languages, we just like speaking our mother tongue. We're a lot older than you, you know, we can get a little stuck in our ways. I'm sure Marcus would love to tell you all about our traditions."

"Please just tell me one thing," said Reyn, "Is Riki's biter actually an important thing? Honestly? Important enough for all this?"

"Riki told you so! Say sorry Riki!" the Nopon demanded, indignity clouding his features, "Big monster know about Monapon. Cleverer than stupid Reyn!"

"I'm going to be late if I keep on chatting to you like this. Golteus and Digalus are already there. I'm going back to Valak Mountain. If you want, I'll give you a lift. It's quicker by air."

"Flying fun!" declared Riki, dancing up and down, "Reyn! Fly on Lexos with Riki!"

"We're going to be completely helpless in the air," said Reyn, "And these are enemies who've killed our people, whether or not they can talk!"

"It's okay, I wouldn't drop you if I wanted to kill you," said Rezno cheerfully, "You might survive that. I'd take you to our actual destination and wait for you to make a massive faux pas in front of Avalanche Abaasy. Or just leave you here and watch the Noponis devour your souls."

"There's an actual Noponis?" Reyn scratched his head.

"Reyn, Riki's going whether we want to or not. We can't just abandon him."

"We can't?" Sharla gave him a murderous glare, so he shrugged, "Okay then, we can't. Let's go!"


	4. Chapter 4

The flight to Valak Mountain was mercifully short but in no way comfortable. It was like flying a Havres with a broken gyromotor. During take-off, Rezno managed to cut a long swathe through every single tree in a kind of wobbly arc between the forest bed and the sky, whereupon he seemed to be magnetically attracted to every other flying creature in Makna Forest, including one Deinos Saurus that was trying to stretch its neck at the same time that the unreliable Unique happened to dip his wings too low. Reyn was fairly sure nothing could fly that badly on purpose, or would be insane enough to want to risk its life by doing so, but he was starting to worry that Rezno would kill them all by accident before they reached their destination. Even Riki was starting to look a little queasy. Initially excited by the new thrill, to the extent that he was jumping up and down so much that Reyn gave up working out how the Nopon wasn't falling off, he was now very quiet and had curled up into a ball, trying not to look down. They were all relieved when the air temperature plummeted, the forest receded into snow-peaked mountain and they saw, amidst a swirling, sparkling blizzard, the steep, jagged spire that crowned Valak Mountain – the perilous Three Sage Peak. Looking down at the narrow path that wound its way around the sheer drop of several thousand feet, its floor grown slippery with layers of compressed snow, the three travellers were still glad they chose not to make their own way up there.

After flying around the peak in circles like a drug-addled vulture a few times because Rezno couldn't actually see in the snow, they landed with a screech on top of Magnificent Digalus. Riki immediately bounded onto the Deinos' head and rolled down its spine and off its tail into a snowdrift. Digalus craned his head to one side, sniffed the Nopon and opened his jaws in a menacing yawn.

"No eating the guests!" snapped another avian creature that Sharla recognised as Illustrious Golteus.

"But it poked me in the eye with a stick!"

"And its a very good thing that it decided to do so at that particular moment, or we would never have found the stick in the first place!"

"Give back Monapon!" demanded Riki, baring his teeth and fluffing up his long wispy flame-coloured fur. Motion sickness clearly didn't affect Nopon for long, as he had recovered his fighting spirit in around five seconds flat.

"What, so you can poke me in the eye with it again?"

"Silence! Order in the court!" roared another voice, one that made the mountain itself shake, sending a shower of boulders down the cliff face and knocking a fresh snowdrift onto Riki's head. When he emerged, shaking his fur dry, the Nopon was looking directly into the snarling muzzle of the speaker, whose bestial form cast a shadow over the entire plateau. The other Uniques shrunk away from him as much as the three travellers did. There was something primally terrifying about him, above and beyond his size and ferocity, as if he embodied the Beast.

"Digalus doesn't have your stick, I've got it, and nobody even lays their eyes upon it until Marcus says this meeting is over!"

"Thank you, Belzegas," said the Slobos. His voice was soft, his size not particularly impressive compared to some of the other individuals gathered in the clearing, but it carried across the absolute silence that descended like nightfall among the crowd. Giving each of them one last glare, the Behemoth settled down, curling his massive bulk around a boulder.

"I see before me the largest gathering of Uniques since the Great Migration," said Marcus. Reyn observed that there were, indeed, a lot of Uniques here, arranged in concentric circles around Marcus' little shrine, with the more powerful Uniques taking up the higher perches and the seats closer to the speaker, the weaker of them risking their lives trying to spill out onto the paths. If they could fly, or persuade a flying creature to lift them into the air, they did so. If the slightest thing goes wrong, we're dead thousands of times over, realised Reyn, and none of us are really the diplomatic type. Final Marcus began speaking again, "I realise these meetings have been taking up a lot of your time, but these are dangerous times ahead of us. The Apocalypse is the least of our worries. Even for those of us who survived, both those who got away and those who endured remaining, we have incontrovertible proof that there are other threats in this world that can find us no matter where we run."

"You're brought the greatest threat to our kind right to our doorstep!" hissed a voice that came from the smallest of the Uniques but one that was given a wide birth as he lounged on his sedan chair, pulled by an honour guard of long-suffering Bunnits. It was Despotic Arsene, Tyrant Emperor of the Bunnit race. Belzegas glared at him and extended a lazy claw the size of the Bunnit's entire body.

"Why do you think I brought so many of us? Indeed, these mortals could – and would, given a chance – defeat you, possibly even Belzegas, in a fight, but there are hundreds of us, and they are surrounded, thanks to Rezno's quick thinking."

Reyn glared at Rezno, who looked almost bashful at Marcus' praise.

"For the first time in history, we must work with these mortals in order to survive, and they must work with us. We must work with them because they – the Nopon in particular – are the only people who can wield the weapon to combat this threat, and because the threat can follow us if we simply hide in the Abyss and wait for it to devour the mortals. They must work with us because they cannot physically reach the enemy, and we have ways to travel between worlds."

"You cannot show the mortals our Abyss-walking technique!"

"Silence! Abaasy himself has given permission! Do you truly seek to contradict him?"

Everyone in the clearing looked visibly shaken by the mention of that name. Sharla had heard of him as well – Avalanche Abaasy, the dragon who appeared on the mountain top when the storms raged and had the powers of a demon.

"If the Abyssal One thinks he can defend the Abyss from intruders on his own, then we must trust him. His powers are in a realm outside ours," said Marcus, "We have risked much by even allowing a mortal, much less one of the Great Threat, to witness our hallowed meeting. We cannot go back now. We can clean up the mess later. We always do."

"Riki can have stick back yet?" piped up the Nopon.

"Yes, little one, you can have your stick back. But if you ever want a chance to use it as it was meant to be used, you will need our help."

"Okay! Riki help polite monster!"

"I'm afraid we will need a little more than that," said Marcus, "But that is not for me to say. It is Abyssal business. Council... I am now summoning Avalanche Abaasy!"

* * *

Where before the Uniques were all trying to crowd into the clearing, each trying to sneak a little further up in their hierarchy than they had permission to, a lot of them backed off at Marcus' proclamation. A few of the braver Uniques tried to edge closer to get a better view, a look of thrill-seeking fascination in their eyes. Marcus' elite guard of Gloria Slobbers stopped whatever maintenance tasks they had been silently performing in the background and arranged themselves around the ritual circle they had been building. Marcus stepped into the centre of the circle and they began chanting in unison, their voices deep and rich, their language long dead among mortals but kept alive forever by its nigh-immortal custodians. Sharla had heard a few words of Giant spoken by archaeologists in Valak Mountain and the Harict Chapel but she understood the meaning of none, except the word 'Abaasy'. Demon of the night. Dragon of the Abyss.

Night had fallen early and abruptly on Three Sage Peak. Sharla wondered if there had been an eclipse. Then the blizzard started up, a true blizzard, not the usual winds that always blew on the mountain, giving a fine white sprinkling to everything within view, but the kind that obscured everything in a maelstrom of snow, the cold cutting through your bones, where you had to cling desperately onto the nearest outcrop of rock to avoid being blown straight off the cliff face. For a few seconds, Sharla could not look up, could not think about anything except the alternating darkness and light and her own stubborn will to stay alive. Then the winds were calmer and she could relax herself against the rock she had been clinging to, could look up and see the dragon whose outstretched wings blotted out the moon. It glided softly to the cliff edge and landed in the summoning circle, inches away from Marcus, who dared not move as the dragon regarded him with unblinking avian eyes. He did not look directly into its eyes either. It was impossible to do so and stay sane; the knowledge hidden away there, the worlds it could see that were invisible to all others in the world, would burn out the brain of another mortal.

Something unspoken passed between the two powerful Uniques, then Marcus looked relieved as the dragon turned his attention away from him, then looked in the direction of the three travellers. For a horrifying moment, Sharla thought that it was her that the dragon was interested in. However, it completely ignored her and stared directly at Riki.

* * *

___Do you want to save your world?_

Riki blinked. It wasn't unheard of for things to speak to him inside his mind, mostly the spirits of the dead. Weird things happened to a Nopon who stood too close to an unusually large concentration of Ether, and the amount of residual energy around these powerful Uniques was enough to make his fur stand on end. Despite its casual overwhelming force, the voice was quite relaxing to listen to. It was like being suspended in water, or knowing there was a solid mountain beneath you. However, there was still an undertone of great danger, not just actively from the dragon eating him but passively from the amount of energy being channelled, and the things it could do if it went out of control, that made Riki unwilling to move from the spot he was standing in, to even move his eyes from its gaze.

"That Heropon's job," he affirmed.  
_  
I was uncertain, when the Apocalypse began, whether to intervene to save this world or hasten its destruction. This world was ours before you child-races were born, and frankly, we do not care about your future as a race. If you become strong enough to rival us or even overthrow us, then that proves your right to own this world, but we won't make it easy for you. The destruction of the world by the Bionis would destroy all of us and leave no future for any species. However, the new world that your people have created is also uninhabitable by most of us. Some of us exist inherently to the Bionis or the Mechonis, some of us are too dangerous to be allowed to exist in a world of peace and safety, some of us simply want a try at finding a better world for ourselves that is not subject to so much disruption. _

_I am not from this world, and I have certain abilities that enable me to see how worlds are constructed from a higher viewpoint, and to travel between worlds. I have been evacuating my people from this world. I would like all my people to survive and to live in worlds suited to them. This Noponis is like myself, not bound to one world, like the Bionis, and it is a predator of worlds. It will devour your world for no reason other than it is hungry, then it will go through the portals I created to devour the other worlds. It is my responsibility to destroy this threat._

_The Nopon race was created along with the Noponis, and is the only race that can interact properly with it, through the Monapon. While the Noponis was created alongside the Mechonis and the Bionis, it was made to exist in isolation, for a reason I do not understand. You are the wielder of the Monapon. I am going to transport you directly into the Noponis, so you can deactivate it with the Monapon. _

"Riki bash Noponis!" he promised.

_No, Riki, I don't want you to 'bash' it. I want you deactivate it properly. Like I said, I have been studying the nature of such worlds for a long time, and I believe I can reproduce the rituals to completely deactivate a world without the need for structural damage. Be thankful I have not been testing it on your world._

However, his tone of voice became harder, bringing with it a chill in the cavern of darkness that his mind created,_ I cannot trust you straight away with this power. Of all the Great Threats – the mortals we believe to have the potential to gain the kind of power needed to fight a Sage – the Nopon called Riki was always the most dangerous. A Homs might stay away from a threat that did not pursue him but a Nopon will seek it out and devour it even if it did not threaten him at all. Besides, you do not have the power yet to fight an entire world. You cannot even wield the Monapon without breaking it, and there is no time for you to learn as Shulk did. I can make sure you stay loyal to me and do not destroy everything I have worked towards, while also giving you that extra power boost you need. It will also give you a slight disconnection from how the Bionis designed you, so that you are shielded if it tries to do something like the Bionis did to the High Entia._

"Riki like power!"  
_  
You do, eh? I always did think you would make a good Unique. _

"Eh?"

Sharla saw the puzzled look on Riki's face, seconds before the claw came slicing forwards, too fast for her to scream. Then the pillar of darkness split the rock and rose high into the air, so high that Shulk and Melia, on their Havres, could see them from the top floor of Frontier Village.


	5. Chapter 5

"You're sure you want to go up there, even though we don't know for certain it's even where they are?" Alvis asked him.

"It can't be a coincidence," said Shulk firmly, "We're looking for lights in the sky. We haven't seen or heard anything from the beasts living up there since we defeated the Bionis. We even thought they were gone, but some of them came back. There was a pillar of darkness in the sky back then, before we stopped seeing the beasts. Then all this happens, and the pillar of darkness comes back. It's where I'd go."

"The creatures living up there would kill you instantly, and I sense nothing like a Bionis reaction," said Alvis, "A powerful reaction, but nothing to do with any creations such as myself."

"Would there necessarily be a... Bionis reaction?" asked Melia.

"No, but it would be evidence to indicate that the location has anything at all to do with our friends and their quest."

"Oleksiy said he saw a giant Lexos suddenly fly away from Makna Forest, close to when the pillar of darkness appeared," said Shulk, "It was going towards Valak Mountain. The Nopon guards said Riki had been searching for the Monapon there."

"What, you think Riki took a ride on the back of a Lexos?" Melia's eyes sparkled with amusement. She's been talking to Sharla a lot, observed Shulk silently. Chatting with her Homs friend, who didn't put on airs for anyone, always seemed to bring out her wicked sense of humour that she couldn't express within the Imperial Court. Reyn being there probably doesn't help. His social skills hadn't really improved over the years.

"Riki there," called out a decisive voice behind them. Shulk turned around to see Miko walking down the stairs that led to the outside of the tree that composed the foundations of Frontier Village. She looked exhausted, her eyes distant, and Shulk guessed that she had just come off duty from a long stretch of meditation. Consulting with spirits was a common Nopon solution to problems they couldn't see an immediate practical solution to (i.e. something they couldn't eat). As far as Shulk knew, it might actually work – Frontier Village had been thriving for a lot longer than any Homs Colonies even existed. She held herself up against a railing and looked straight at Melia with eyes that were still partly gazing into the spirit world.

"Riki's up there on the peak, you mean?" asked Shulk. The High Priestess shook her head and pointed upwards with her staff of office.

"In sky. Arrow of darkness swallow Riki, take him up to sky," she said, "Miko see in vision."

"Did you see anything else in the vision? How to follow Riki?" asked Shulk.

"Riki fall," said Miko, her voice despairing in a way Shulk had never heard in a Nopon before, "Miko's fault. Miko no listen to spirits right, not listen to own instinct."

"Riki not heropon," she said, "Not wielder of Monapon. Miko see Riki pick up Monapon, but... Riki break Monapon. Not use it, just bash monster with it. If Riki use Monapon, Monapon hurt Riki. Riki no beat Noponis. Then Noponis eat Riki and whole world!"

"Like Dunban," said Shulk.

"Miko thought Riki is Heropon because Chief say, Riki say, everyone say, but sometimes people say wrong."

"I understand. It was the same with Dunban," said Shulk, "Everyone expected him to be able to do everything, because they had decided he was the hero."

"Miko, do you know who the real wielder of the Monapon is?" asked Alvis.

"Bana," she said, "Bana is Heropon."

"The drug dealer?" Shulk gave her a confused look.

"Shulk, it was Bana who gave Riki the Monapon in the first place!" Melia reminded him.

"The wielder of a Monado does not have to be a good person," said Alvis, "Shulk, you grew up to be a good person for the same reason that any normal person would, without ever knowing you were the wielder of the Monado. Yours isn't the only kind of strength. If something else was keeping somebody strong, even if it wasn't a good thing, they would be able to survive wielding the Monado. Bana is strong in his own way, and he is the kind of person who can change his own fate. To a more lawless society, he might have been seen as an astute businessman, maybe even become the founder of his own Colony."

"But he threw away the Monapon," said Shulk, "He gave it to Riki!"

"I don't think he was really strong enough to keep hold of the Monapon for very long," said Alvis, "He proved not to be that strong of will in the end. I think he knew. I think that's why he tried to give the Monapon up to someone else, so at least someone could make use of it."

"So, what do we do now? Go after Riki and say, oops, we made a mistake? He would never give the Monapon back to Bana in a million years! Where is Bana, anyway?"

"Not know. Chief banish him for life. Say, not care where you go, just never go near village again!"

"Oh, great!" Shulk groaned, "He could be anywhere!"

"There is another possibility," said Alvis, "But, Miko... I need to ask you something... have you always been able to see visions to do with the Monapon?"

"Miko have other visions too," she said, "Miko's visions come true! Miko talk to spirits, sometimes even travel to places."

"Miko, you may be related to the Monapon in some way, like I am," said Alvis, "You might be able to change the wielder of the Monapon."

"You can do that?" asked Shulk, "You could have made Reyn wielder of the Monado if you wanted to?"

"If the risk was great enough, I have authority to, although it is not one of the functions I am meant to perform," said Alvis, "I do not know Miko's intended function, if she is even a program like me at all, but it is something we can try."

"It'll be easier than trying to track down Bana at short notice," agreed Shulk.

"I suggest you do not speak of this to the other Nopon at all. It would cause mass panic if they might not be able to rely on their Heropon," said Alvis.

"We still don't know how we're even going to get there," said Shulk.

"Monapon lead us," said Miko confidently. Her spirits seemed to have picked up at the suggestion that Riki could be saved, and that she could even be a part of it.

When Miko had said her farewell to Dunga, claiming that she was just going to pass on a message to Riki that he needed urgently to hear in person, they returned to their Havres and set off towards Valak Mountain at once.


	6. Chapter 6

Riki found himself hurtling through the tunnel of thick, crackling darkness, spinning uncontrollably as a leaf trapped inside a tornado. If he was physically enduring this journey, his tiny Nopon body would have been torn apart by the forces buffeting him, but his spirit-body only found it exhilarating, like finding himself suddenly lucid within a dream. The solid shadow was veined with dark purple lightning. Uncountable levels of pure shadow-ether roared in Riki's sensitive ears as its constant reactions kept the portal permanently torn open, sheer mass of concentrated fate bending reality with its weight.

Inside his dark tunnel through dimensions his mind could not quite comprehend, he could see nothing of the world he was leaving behind or that he was approaching except the moment he left and when he finally emerged. The pillar had lifted him up into the sky as it ascended, higher and higher until the Uniques looked like ants milling around on the surface of a particularly tall, spiky boulder. As it reached the other side, he saw himself drawing closer to the Noponis, the Blue Devouring Star. It was a tree. Different to any tree that ever grew on the Bionis, but still a tree. It was as large as the whole of Makna Forest itself, with a globular trunk like a Nopon body and four mandrake-like roots where a Nopon's arms and legs would be. Its broad, wide branches ended in spiky palm-like leaves like a Nopon's hair if they didn't cut it for a year. It radiated Ether energy, more than anything of even that size could contain, so that its brilliant cobalt aura spilled out onto mundane visible planes.

What looked like a twisted knothole that exposed its trunk as hollow, spilled out gouts of blue flame that rippled in different shades, like a Nopon breathing fire. Riki realised, as he was lifted further down towards the star-behemoth, that it was a maw, filled with multiple rings of sharp predator's teeth as it roared its perpetual, insatiable hunger. He saw other things in there, furry, sharp-toothed things that flapped in and out of its mouth, their shapes too close to primitive Nopons. He remembered Abaasy's warning about the Telethia and shivered. He didn't want to remember the conversation with the dragon at all. His entire back still ached where those fell claws had raked him, ever so lightly and precisely but still enough to leave a burning scar. I will make sure you stay loyal to me... He shook his head. Abaasy was not here – watching him, almost definitely, but not the immediate threat, like this ravenous beast before, and the fact that the wormhole's path seemed to be taking him straight into it's mouth.

"Noponis no eat Riki," he whispered, his eyes narrowing in what he hoped was a look of heroic determination as he grasped the handle of the Monapon, his legendary weapon, reforged by Marcus' Gloria Sloboses and stored in their own sacred keep, now glowing with the same power as the Noponis. His voice rose to a shrill scream as he bared his teeth, "Riki eat Noponis!"

As he rode the dark waves of power, propelling himself further into the tunnel-like gullet of the Noponis, the Nopon-things that were symbiotically serving their host all paused in their menial duties and rushed him, teeth gnashing. Riki whirled his biter around his head with his wings, sending trails of blue light through space as the weapon cleaved through wings and skulls. Gouts of flame and ice poured from his mouth. He heard a familiar war-cry, like the bellowing of a pregnant Armu, and saw several of his enemies go limp and drift away into space as something killed them faster and from further away than he could spot. Sharla and Reyn had caught up with him. Together, they charged through the flames and the fields of spiked teeth, only Abaasy's protective field stopping them from being immolated instantly.

At the end of the tunnel, Riki emerged into a clearing, and it struck him how similar this place looked to Frontier Village. For a moment, he thought he had stepped through the front gate of his home and into the Central Plaza. He saw the same network of balconies and platforms around the edge of the trunk, both inside and outside, the same pool in the middle, even some mushroom-clocks and a couple of pollen refineries. However, the pool was made of pure ether, the pathways were more chaotic and organic, like worm-tunnels or patterns in a wasp's nest, with more meta-Nopons swarming around them and flying down to attack the party. After a few minutes of observation, he realised that the enormous factories weren't working with pollen. The hollow fibrous tubes were feeding in all sorts of materials, all of which were being broken down into ether under intense heat. The ether fed into more pipes that led down into the pool. There were more pipes under the pool, that fed down into where the basement would have been. Riki wondered if the thing ate ether, and this was its digestive system.

"Riki eat you back! For midnight snack!" he promised at the top of his voice, feeling pleased with himself for spontaneously rhyming. A fresh wave of meta-Nopons flew down at him, spitting fireballs from their jagged mouths, and Sharla picked off two of them with consecutive head-shots.

"Where do we go now, Riki?" asked Reyn.

"How Riki know? Place look Bunnit warren," he shrugged.

"What do you mean, you don't know? I thought you were the Heropon!" Reyn complained, "Isn't the Monapon supposed to start glowing and lead us to the core, so we can fight a God or a big monster or something?"

"Monapon busy fighting. Just pick way and stick with it," suggested Riki.

"That's not a solution! That's... that's the sort of thing I would do!"

"At this rate, maybe we can leave a trail of corpses to find our way back," said Sharla as she shot a round of healing ether-bullets into Reyn's leg, "Seriously, Riki, we can't search all of these tunnels and hope we get the right one, not with these things flooding out of the walls faster than I can shoot them down!"

"What Riki supposed to do? Relax. Everything go okay in end. Heropon destined to win! Heropon bash monster and save day!"

Are you really going to hang on to that stubborn notion that you have a clue what you're doing here?

Riki whirled around, holding the Monapon out in front of him. The voice in his head was coming from the ether pool. In its centre, shimmering like the mythical lake-spirit from Bana's picture book, was the phantom image of a Nopon. Riki knew somewhere deep inside him that it was the true spirit of the Noponis.

It looked like Bana. He was wielding the Monapon.


	7. Chapter 7

_Oh, Riki. Silly, cowardly, childish Riki. Sometimes I wonder if you even know how what it is to be a Nopon. _

"What stupid Bana doing here? Village throw you out! No interfere with our business!"  
_  
Oh, but you completely ruined mine, so I should repay the favour, hm? _He smiled almost serenely, _But that isn't why I'm here. Do you really think it would be? Who gave you the Monapon in the first place? Me, you idiot. I'm the true wielder of the Monapon. I thought it might work, giving it to you once I had failed, but all you can really do with such delicate mechanisms is break them._

"Bana not even a little bit hero! Look stupid all glowy like that! And Monapon fixed! Look!" he waved the weapon vaguely in Bana's direction, then yelped as a surge of pain went through his wings, paralysing them and forcing him to drop the Monapon.

_Well done, getting your enemies to do your work for you. But, do you understand that they don't care at all about your world? Neither does the Monapon, and neither do I. This world is a failure. It managed to produce such harmful entities that they hacked into the system governing their own world and overwrote its core programming. It needs to be shut down. That's what the Noponis does – it roams the Universe, finds failed worlds, and shuts them down, after salvaging all possible resources and breaking them down into a form where they can be reused. Of course, it uses a lot of the resources to power itself, but its better than having catastrophically failed worlds still running. If you rely on the service, you accept the costs._

"What Bana talking about? Riki no care!" he bent down to pick up the Monapon. It was like picking up a white-hot piece of iron, except that the pain was everywhere in his body at once, but he was prepared for it this time. Gritting his teeth, he let the pain wash over him. His voice came out as a strangled gasp, "Riki... no... care! Not important if Riki real Heropon, Riki not let you eat world! Riki... Riki like Dun-Dun! Riki fight through pain!"

_Riki, you're fighting the very essence of what you are. You can't win against the condition of being a Nopon. We are creatures of the stars. We are connected to systems like this all over the Universe, sometimes settling on problem planets briefly to monitor their progress, report back and be a beacon to the Noponis. We live outside the rules of the worlds we settle on, but we can never resist the call of the stars. Never. You should find glory in what you are, Riki... or do you truly hate Nopons so much?_

"Riki not just Nopon!" he screamed in an almost berserk rage, the unbearably bright crimson light of pain eating away at his sanity, "RIKI... UNIQUE!"

Something inside him managed to grab onto the edge of the light and push, and suddenly the light was outside him, flowing through his fingertips, just another power source. He roared uncontrollably, letting out all the pain, all at once. The scar on his back was burning – glowing, he realised. The thing that Abaasy had done to him had already been triggered.

* * *

Flinging the Monapon aside, Riki ran into the Ether Pool and flung himself at the Spirit of the Noponis, biting and screeching and thumping Bana's image with his bare hands. The liquid Ether, that should have dissolved the bones of any living being within seconds of their immersion, had no effort on Riki, and was steaming from the flames of his aura. Bana was thrown down into the pool by the force of the impact and Riki swam after him at a furious pace. Sharla had to pull Reyn back from trying to follow him.

"He's going to get himself killed!" protested Reyn.

"We'll definitely die going after him. We couldn't keep up with him anyway. I'm not sure that's even Riki any more."

"We can't just abandon him! There's something wrong with him! What if he doesn't turn back into his old self?"

"Let's keep those things off him," Sharla pointed to the swarm of meta-Nopons that were making a beeline for Riki. Most of them spilled through the tubes set into the trunk that led down into the lowers levels, others tried to dive into the pool and were vaporised.

"We're actually going to be Riki's backup? It's gonna get to his head!" said Reyn as he interposed himself between the swarm and two of the pipes, cutting off their exit. With every swing of his driver, he smashed three of them into the ground. Sharla shot down more of the creatures as they rushed him.

"Yes, I know, we'll never live it down, but he'll probably just make up what happened anyway, if he doesn't like it!"

"I can't believe all of this is real," said Reyn, "Are you absolutely sure Riki didn't use the wrong mushrooms in our stew again?"

"You think we could have imagined something like that?"

"Maybe Riki is hallucinating us all, then," said Reyn. They both laughed, but it was to cover up their terror at a world gone insane.

Then, suddenly, everything began to shake, the roots writhing and flailing like tentacles as they pulled themselves free from the intricate pattern that was holding the structure together. They heard an inhuman gurgling screech that sent tremors down the already unstable balconies. Sharla was thrown backwards, almost falling straight into the ether pool. Reacting with a born defender's instincts, Reyn grabbed her in one arm while holding onto one of the larger roots with the other. It started thrashing and trying to shake him off but he held on, not just for his own life, but for Sharla's.

Whatever Riki had just done, it had truly enraged the beast.


	8. Chapter 8

"Know Riki's name!" yelled the Nopon, swiping away the roots that tried to grab him and pull him limb from limb, or slash him with sharp barbed thorns. He had already caught a branch and snapped it off to use as a replacement biter. Every blow with the weapon broke another root in two – the thing didn't seem to react well to being smacked with a weapon made from its own limbs.

"Riki... um..." he paused as he realised he hadn't actually decided on a Unique name, and that a root was about to collide with his face at a speed that would take his head off. Jump-hovering above it and bringing his biter down on it, he yelled decisively, "Insatiable Riki!"

_How about 'foolish Riki'? I can't believe you sacrificed your status as a person to fight a battle you shouldn't be fighting!_

Mocking as his words were, Bana's voice sounded less confident now, more pleading. Slowly but surely, faster than should have been possible, Riki was gaining ground against the roots that defended the core of their tree. With a daring leap that took him precisely between four roots and gave room to smack away a fifth, Riki was within biter range. The wild expression on his face became one of almost child-like delight as he brought his biter down in an overhead swing...

_Riki..._

"No beg for life, foul villain!" screamed Riki. Then he realised it wasn't Bana talking. The voice was that of a female Nopon, soft and ethereal but possessing of a subtle strength. Materialising in front of his third eye was the image of Miko, a grave expression on her face. Suddenly, Riki couldn't see anything else: not Bana, not the Noponis and its roots, only Miko.

"What want? Riki busy!"

_Riki, Miko sorry. Riki not Heropon._

"Really not? Bana not lie?"

_Bana there? Riki in even more danger than Miko thought. Listen, you fight Noponis, things go very bad._

"No worry Riki. Riki winning."

_You win fight, but you no stop Noponis. Machine break, no shut down. You no fix by hitting it. Understand?_

"What Miko know about machine?"

_Riki rude, should listen to wise High Priestess._

"Riki sorry. Listen, Riki got something need to tell you. Riki no think he can go back to clan..."

_Riki do bad crime? Kill other Nopon? Sell Caviar to littlepons?_

"Well, no, but..."

_Miko no care what Riki do, then, Riki home here with wifeypon and littlepons. Riki go away too much._

"You no understand... Riki Unique now..."

_Everypon unique in own way. Listen, Riki, you do something for Miko. You step away, let Miko do thing. Then bash Noponis with Monapon._

"You just said no bash..."

_Just shut up and do it!_

Without waiting for a reply, the High Priestess shunted Riki to the back of his own mind, so that all he could see was darkness, and his own body moving somewhere. Unintelligible words and meaningless symbols scrolled through his mind in bright blue letters, too fast for him to follow. It looked like machine things. Riki didn't understand machine things. Shulk had explained to him before that wielding a Monado was best left to people who understood machine things, but he hadn't listened, and he'd just gone ahead with it because it seemed like a heroic thing to do. he sometimes wished he didn't keep doing such stupid things. It didn't matter now. He didn't have to keep trying to find heroic things to do. He wasn't a hero any more, he was a Unique.

_Now,_ said the voice in his mind, and he saw the Monapon floating there in the darkness. It looked different to before. It had just been the same old Monapon, but patched together and glowing blue from the energy imbued within it by five Sloboses chanting for a day solid. Now it truly looked like the branch of a World Tree, silvery and flowing and ornate, still alive and waiting to be planted. That's what the Monapon is for, he realised: the Monado was a key to unlock a door, the Monapon is a sapling to be planted.

Riki twirled the Monapon around in his head-wing so that the end was reversed, then he thrust it deep into the core of the Noponis. Light exploded from it, then everything went dark.


	9. Chapter 9

Oleksiy watched the star explode in a coruscation of blue flame, then wink out of existence, like a falling star hitting the atmosphere and burning up. He smiled. They had taken his advice after all. He couldn't say that he was completely useless in this day and age. Someone needed to keep watching the stars.

"Looks like he won," observed Shulk.

"Shulk, Riki's going to put you out of a job!" said Melia.

"The signal went out completely. There's nothing left of the Noponis that can threaten our world," confirmed Alvis.

"How do we know if they survived?" asked Shulk, "Reyn and Sharla were up there too!"

"There's your answer. Reyn's up there. You know Reyn – he wouldn't let someone die under his protection!" Melia reassured him.

"Should we go and wait for them on Valak Mountain? They might need medical attention, and if Sharla's taken an injury, I'm the only other healer on our team!"

"Shulk, I would like you to tend to Miko, she is completely exhausted from her mental ordeal," said Alvis.

"I'll do what I can, although fetching a Nopon doctor might be better."

"I'll go and help organise the homecoming feast. I'm worried they'll eat it all before Riki actually comes home!" said Melia. The entire village had gone berserk as soon as victory was formally announced. It was as if a class of school-children had broken up for the summer, and were coming to the realisation that they no longer needed to be organised or hard-working for a good long time to come. Melia was needed in this kind of time to make sure they remained at least disciplined enough not to accidentally set their tree on fire in a cooking accident.

As they waved goodbye to Melia and began the long walk up the many stairs and balconies to the top floor, where Miko meditated in her prayer hut, Alvis turned to Shulk with a morose expression on his face.

"Shulk, I will have to leave this world soon," he said, "I was unaware of how far the Monado technology had spread. It was only ever intended to replace our own world. Structures such as the Noponis imply a drive to overwrite every reality in existence. If it is allowed to continue, our own world will be put in further danger, and other worlds will be fighting against the same threats. I do not want people such as yourself, with homes, family and everyday lives, to dedicate yourself to fighting this threat. I am part of this machine, so I must be the one to shut it down."

"You can't just leave us! You're a person too! You can't fight alone!" said Shulk.

"I am not alone, Shulk. Meeting Miko has made me realise that I am not the only independently-minded Monado device. I don't want to pressure Miko into joining me, but I will find others to fight alongside me."

"If that's what you have to do, then I can't really stop you. I don't think I really understand the world you live in. Not yet," said Shulk, "And I thought Nopons were complicated!"

"Thank you for always treating me as a person. It has helped me act like one," said Alvis, "I promise never to forget what it means to be a person. Now, come, we can't keep Miko waiting."

* * *

"Oka knew hubbypon could do it," declared his wife. He had missed her smell – all fresh cooking and pollen, the scents of the village. It felt good to hold her in his arms again, even if hugging was an awkward process for round Nopons with short arms. The children danced around him and jumped up and down, tearing at his clothes to try and find souvenirs of his journey or, failing that, breakfast. They were overjoyed to have him back. After all, they didn't pester other Nopons, even the ones who were carrying more food than him.

"Riki tell us about exciting adventures!" the smallest of his daughters, Niki, demanded.

"Riki bestest heropon!" said Miki, her slightly older brother. Riki wasn't very imaginative at naming his children.

"Listen, Riki got important announcement," their father declared, shooing them into some semblance of a circle on the floor around him, "Riki... um... Riki retire as Heropon. Getting too old. Too much like Dun-Dun."

"What? But then who protect village?" asked Oka.

"Maybe guards do their job for once?" suggested Riki.

"Riki go do job! No sit around on fat bum! How I feed littlepons?" asked Oka.

"Riki no stop work, just no be Heropon from now on. Riki already got new job," he explained.

"Oh yeah? What job?"

"Um... they said Riki no tell. Is corporate secret," he said.

"Yeah, well Oka say you lying! Go out and get job!"

"Yes, wifeypon," he sighed.

It was no use trying to explain it to her. As long as he took home some fish every day, she wouldn't care what else he had been doing all day, and it wasn't as if he was doing anything illegal. Maybe one day he would be able to explain it, or maybe there would come a time when he didn't need to. There was a part of him that he had to keep separate from his wifeypon, a part of him that wasn't in the same world any more, but that was normal in relationships, like not mixing your work and home life.

The next morning, Riki set off into the jungle, where he would wait for Rezno to take him back to Valak Mountain.


End file.
